Happy Birthday, La Crescenta!

This weekend the Crescenta Valley Town Council and the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley will be celebrating the 135th anniversary of the community of La Crescenta – 1884 to 2019. Have we ever celebrated this birthday before? Not that I am aware of. So how did this event come about, and why 135 years?

The event itself was inspired by Montrose. Each year they celebrate Founders Day, which commemorates the first sale of lots in 1913, and each year the Historical Society sets up a tent in the Harvest Market on Founders Day to show off our collection of old photos and share memories with passersby. Harry Leon, the current president of the Crescenta Valley Town Council, stopped by our booth this year and proposed the idea of a similar celebration for La Crescenta. We met with Town Council members and planned the event for Sept. 21. But how old is La Crescenta? Montrose had a hard date – the first land sale on Feb. 22, 1913. Why did we choose 1884 for La Crescenta?

Let’s run through a quick La Crescenta history lesson. Williams and Lanterman came from Michigan for their health in 1875. They liked what they saw and bought nearly 6,000 acres of land, what is today the Crescenta-Cañada Valley. It had been named Rancho La Cañada by the previous Mexican owner and they kept the name.

Health seekers were coming to the Los Angeles area in droves for the clean, dry air, then the only cure for lung diseases such as TB and asthma. In 1882 Dr. Benjamin Briggs, who was suffering from lung disease himself – probably tuberculosis – came to Los Angeles. His aim was to establish a hospital for the treatment of lung disease, but he also saw opportunity in real estate. The railroads had reached LA in 1880 and set off a land boom. Land prices were doubling and tripling. Briggs liked what he saw in La Cañada, and started speculatively purchasing lots on the western side of the valley that, until then, had been known informally by the rather unattractive (although appropriate) name of “Big Rocks.” It didn’t take him long to buy up the entire western half of La Cañada – 2,500 acres ¬– which he subdivided into 10-acre parcels. 

By 1884 he was ready to sell lots. Needing a name for his subdivision, he observed that the mountains around the valley formed crescent shapes against the sky. To give it a Spanish flavor, he added an “a” at the end: “Crescenta.”

There it is. 1884. The birth of “Crescenta.” (“La” was added a few years later by the post office so it wouldn’t be confused with Crescent City.) Initially he hung onto the Cañada as well, going with an Anglicized “Canyada.” Here’s one of those first newspaper ads in 1884:

“Crescenta Canyada, a healthful and beautiful spot. Fine climate. Fine soil. Pure water and plenty of it. Only 11 miles north of Los Angeles. Crescenta Canyada is a tract of 2500 acres of land situated near the base of the Sierra Madre Mountains above the Verdugo Canyon, known as frostless, warm brush land. It is now being subdivided into ten-acre lots, each of which will have water right from a series of reservoirs now being made on the tract. A tract of forty acres has been laid out as a town site with a park and a fountain. As a situation for invalids it is one of the finest in the world. Special inducements will be given to parties who will put up a hotel.”

I guess this qualifies as La Crescenta’s birth announcement. Briggs never built his hospital before he died of his own lung disease in 1893, but he did build a town with a school, church, hotel and general store.

Happy birthday La Crescenta! One-hundred-and-thirty-five years! You don’t look a day over 100! If you’d like to attend La Crescenta’s birthday celebration, it’ll be this Saturday the 21st at 6 p.m. at St. Luke’s Church, 2563 Foothill Blvd. Tickets are $60 for a full dinner and entertainment. Call Jo Ann at (818) 269-3295 for tickets.

  mike lawler